News

“Every year since 2009, a handful of artists, engineers, musicians, and hobbyists from around the world arrive in Atlanta, Georgia, with one-of-a-kind instruments in tow,” writes Andrew Paul for Popular Science. Among them is Pippa Kelmenson ’17, inventor of the Bone Conductive Instrument, or BCI. Popular Science named the BCI, which “emits sound signals to vibrate individual body resonant frequencies to aid hard-of-hearing users,” as one of 2023’s most innovative musical inventions. According to Kelmenson, the BCI “calls for an inclusive and innovative way for users across the hearing spectrum to interact with sound.”

Bard College faculty members and alums will be among the 71 artists and collectives selected to participate in this year’s Whitney Biennial, the 81st installment of the landmark exhibition series. Whitney Biennial 2024: Even Better Than the Real Thing opens on March 20. Works by Visiting Assistant Professor of Music Sarah Hennies; Assistant Professor of American and Indigenous Studies, Distinguished Artist in Residence in Studio Arts, and Bard MFA Faculty in Music/Sound Kite MFA ’18; and Bard MFA Faculty in Sculpture Lotus Laurie Kang MFA ’15 will be featured alongside those by alums Diane Severin Nguyen MFA ’20, Carolyn Lazard ’10, and Eddie Rodolfo Aparicio ’12. The Center for Curatorial Studies, Bard College graduate Min Sun Jeon CCS ’22 helped to organize the exhibition.

The 2024 Whitney Biennial is organized by Chrissie Iles (Anne and Joel Ehrenkranz Curator) and Meg Onli (Curator at Large), with Min Sun Jeon CCS ’22 and Beatriz Cifuentes. The performance program is organized by Iles and Onli, with guest curator Taja Cheek. The film program is organized by Iles and Onli, with guest curators Korakrit Arunanondchai, asinnajaq, Greg de Cuir Jr, and Zackary Drucker.

“After finalizing the list of artists last summer, we have built a thematic Biennial that focuses on the ideas of ‘the real,’” write the curators. “Society is at an inflection point around this notion, in part brought on by artificial intelligence challenging what we consider to be real, as well as critical discussions about identity. Many of the artists presenting works—including via robust performance and film programs—explore the fluidity of identity and form, historical and current land stewardship, and concepts of embodiment, among other urgent throughlines, and we are inspired by the work they are creating and sharing.”

Two Bard faculty members and two alumni/ae are recipients of MacDowell Fellowships. Carl Elsaesser, visiting artist in residence at Bard College in Film and Electronic Arts, has been awarded a MacDowell Fellowship to MacDowell's Residency Program in the Film/Video Artists category for fall/winter 2023. Elsaesser’s residency will support the completion of his project, Coastlines, a feature-length film that intertwines the ethnographic intricacies of Maine’s coastline with the intimate video diaries of a Portland family, inviting a reevaluation of evolving identities and artistic representation within the private and public spheres. Drawing from queer phenomenology and traditional historical narratives, the film challenges perceptions and redefines the boundaries of storytelling, revealing Maine’s dual role as a backdrop and active participant in shaping inhabitants’ sense of self.

Daaimah Mubashshir, playwright in residence at Bard, received a MacDowell Fellowship in MacDowell’s Artist Residency Program for fall 2023 in Peterborough, New Hampshire, in support of their work on a new play about their great grandmother, Begonia Williams Tate, who defied all odds in Mobile, Alabama, in the late 19th century. Chaya Czernowin, a composer and Bard MFA ’88 in Music, and Bard alumna Hannah Beerman ’15, are also 2023 MacDowell Fellowship recipients. The MacDowell Fellowships are distributed by seven discipline-specific admissions panels who make their selections based on applicants’ vision and talent as reflected by work samples and a project description. Once at MacDowell, selected Fellows are provided a private studio, three meals a day, and accommodations for a period of up to six weeks. 

Student Artwork Exhibited on Billboard in Hudson and in Temporary Installation in Richard Abraham’s Memorial Park in Red Hook

Bard Community Arts Collective and the Center for Civic Engagement at Bard are pleased to announce the installation of several student artworks in Dutchess County and Columbia County.

How Long Will We Be Driving by Bard student James Wise ’26 is on view at a billboard located at 3391 US-9, Hudson, NY 12534 from December 20, 2023 to January 17, 2024. This work is presented through a partnership with Shandaken Projects’ public art initiative 14x48, which has exhibited new work by contemporary artists on billboards across New York State since 2021.

Additionally, works from students in the Studio Arts Program at Bard have been temporarily installed in Richard Abraham’s Memorial Park in Red Hook, as part of a pilot partnership with the Village of Red Hook’s Public Spaces Initiative Committee. 

These projects originated in an Extended Media course taught by artist Julia Weist in the Studio Arts Program at Bard. This class explores the potential of presenting art in an expanded field of engagement, including in the public realm, asking students to consider how the interpretation of their work changes when it is experienced in a mass media or civic context. In addition to exercises and instruction in the classroom, students visited the offices of Shandaken Projects and met with the Village of Red Hook’s Chair for the Public Spaces Initiative Committee, Ash Bradley-Rickard, and the Red Hook Village Board to learn more about opportunities for artists in the public sector. Each student created a two-dimensional billboard proposal, reviewed by Shandaken Projects, and a three-dimensional public art proposal, which was presented at a Village Board meeting on November 13, 2023. One billboard proposal was selected by Shandaken Projects for production, and every student proposal was approved for temporary installation in Richard Abraham’s Memorial Park.

The selected billboard, created by James Wise, was created by layering more than 50 AI-generated images. At first glance from the vantage of a moving car, the image appears to be a standard insurance ad. A closer look reveals that the uncanny advertisement includes only one legible question—“How long will we be driving?”—along with other text-like elements that are distorted and nonsensical. The billboard’s question highlights several challenging issues related to emerging technologies and the future of our planet, such as the loss of human autonomy that may come from an increased reliance on AI (including through self-driving cars) and the impact of driving carbon-polluting cars on a warming climate. The figure at the center of the ad, the avatar created by artificial intelligence to represent an insurance salesman, represents another troubling facet of algorithmic technology: these tools often closely reflect those who create them. The AI field is predominately white and male, and Wise’s artwork asks us to consider if those individuals who are in the driver’s seat of our tech future broadly represent the diverse communities that will use artificial intelligence. Wise said of the project, “Making a piece for the public takes what I’ve been doing within a class environment to a larger, more diverse audience, so I approached it as such. I sought to create something with enough depth to conjure a diverse array of reactions, regardless of what I intended, and I hope to see that reflected in public feedback to the project."

The student artwork installed in Richard Abraham’s Memorial Park spanned a variety of materials, from sculptures made from wood and steel to large format photographic prints. Each was developed with the park’s landscape and context in mind. Several of the pieces are interactive and all were made to be installed without impacting the local habitat native to the site. Although the temporary installation was not open to the public, this project served as a pilot program allowing the Village and Bard Community Arts Collective to imagine future collaborative opportunities. A student in the course, Elena Schneider ’27, said of the project, “Being able to make something to be displayed in the landscape where we live pushed me to create something I really care about and am proud of. I put a lot of work into my sculpture and it was very rewarding to see it come to life in such a beautiful place. I hope to have more opportunities to present student work in public places.”